1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to information management, and more particularly, to managing networked information using physical objects.
2. Description of Related Art
To simply find a computer file, one often searches through several directories, through several hard disks, or even through data on several networked computers. Because of the sheer size of one""s personal information space, keeping track of where things are located has become a chore. Modern human-computer interfaces provide many mechanisms that attempt to help, such as navigating a hierarchical file structure or following paths through the World Wide Web. Because people naturally think of such information spaces in physical terms [see, e.g., references #4, #8, #11 at the end of this specification], user interface designers often try to create virtual worlds that are similar to the physical world [see, e.g., references #3, 11]. Nevertheless, the sheer volume of information available today inevitably leads to problems in managing it [see, reference #9].
Thus, there is a need in the art for new approaches to information management, especially mechanisms that can be used to move information from place to place. More specifically, there is a need in the art for approaches that simplify the steps a user must go through to copy a file from one physical location to another on a ftp site or on the web, as well as the time involved to perform those steps.
To minimize the limitations in the prior art described above, and to minimize other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for managing information through the use of physical objects. An Informative Thing that is a physical object stores a pointer to the desired information. Upon interfacing to a network-based system, the pointer is retrieved and then used to retrieve the desired information associated with the Informative Thing from a network-based system.